In Fire Forged
by OmgImPwned
Summary: In a world where modern physics and chakra are seemingly irreconcilable, fifteen year old Haruno Sakura graduates as a first-grade genin with the year's highest academic scores and is thrust into a world that is perhaps more complex and a lot less nice than she would have thought at first. AU. Volume one of a planned trilogy. This story will update next on June 29th, at 00:01, GMT.
1. Spark 1

**Author's note:**

This story updates sundays on a bi-weekly schedule, 00:01 AM, GMT.

Readers should be cautioned that the story may turn fairly dark further in and does not pull its punches. Morality isn't always black and white, the heroes are not invincible and the child-soldiering world of Naruto can be less than pretty when viewed through the lens of unforgiving realism. Mature themes are present, including graphic violence and at times coarse language. Sex _may_ happen, but will in such a case take place "off screen". Listing the trigger warnings that don't apply might be easier than listing the ones that do.

That being said, it is not a complete dark-fest of induced audience apathy. Lighthearted moments of humanity can always be found even in the darkest of times, and there is after all always a light at the end of the tunnel.

Enjoy reading! Certainly I have enjoyed writing.

* * *

It is my opinion that the rapidly changing political landscape has transformed the nature of warfare forever. Wars will no longer be fought by individual city states or minor alliances, they will be fought by _nations_ commanding conscript armies that far surpass any we've seen before in terms of size, training and discipline. We _must_ commit to a similarly unified organizational structure; only if we act as one will we be able to reach an agreement with the new government that will allow us to retain any semblance of political control and independence. Unfortunately, my lords, times have changed.

— _Uchiha Madara's first address to the summit hosted by the Uchiha and Senju clans that would later lead to the founding of Konoha._

* * *

_Heroes don't exist. And if they did, I wouldn't be one of them._

* * *

_Summer, 1021 AS (After the Sage)_

* * *

When I woke, the sun was already shining in my face. Lying there, all tangled up in my bedsheets, it took a few sleepy moments staring at the angle of the sunlight before an ugly feeling began to form in my gut.

I turned in the bed and looked at my clock. A quarter to eight. It should have gone off more than an hour ago. The alarm must have broken. Again. I was going to be late. Again.

_Damn._

I tore up out of bed, already reaching for the clothes I'd dropped in a tangle yesterday. Beginning to pull them on, I half-jumped, half-staggered out of my room and down the corridor to the bathroom for an extremely abbreviated morning routine.

Half a minute later I stormed back to my room to grab my equipment belts and strap them on. One around my waist, one around my right thigh. Kunai, shuriken, regular scrolls, _my_ scrolls, bandages, various other odds and ends I had no intention of sorting through right now.

I was a bit light on the scrolls, so I stomped over to the small workshop I had in the corner of the room to rummage around for a few that were done, nearly knocking over a few bottles of my homebrew chakra ink in my haste. I winced, forcing a bit of calm into my frantic search. Those were precious.

After a few moments, I stepped back. I had enough. No time to hide weapons on my body. The jounin examiner no doubt wouldn't appreciate a half-assed effort.

Pulling a hand through my hair, I miserably glanced about the room for a few more precious seconds. Anything I'd forgotten, anything I'd missed? Nothing caught my immediate attention.

I sped out the door and stormed down the hallway, right past my mom and dad who were taking their morning coffee in the kitchen. Dad grunted, sounding bemused, but his eyes didn't leave his newspaper. Mom just stared at me as I started firmly tying on my steel-studded sandals as fast as I could.

"In a hurry, dear?" she asked, frowning. "I thought you passed the examination yesterday." A faint smile touched her lips. "Top of the class, too."

My fingers slipped and I forced myself to slow down and pay attention to the knots. Much as I had to hurry, it wouldn't do to break my neck because of a loose sandal slipping off and sending me tumbling to my death at some inopportune time. Surely they wouldn't fail me if I was just a minute late…?

"I didn't pass the individual jounin trial yet, mum," I said and began tying my other sandal. "I'm first grade, remember? We qualify for having a jounin come and see if they want to be our sensei. So unless I want to be dumped into a lower grade team with a chuunin sensei—"

"Yes, yes…" my father said and waved a hand at me, his eyes not leaving his newspaper. "Ninja stuff. We know. Don't be home late."

I finished and stood up, staring at him for a timeless moment. My mother frowned, glancing between the two of us. Dad didn't look up. I wanted to tell him that I was fifteen now, that he should stop coddling me and not disapprove whenever I did something he didn't like. But I didn't have the time, right now.

"Yeah," I said instead. "Ninja stuff. See you later."

Without waiting for a reply, I opened the door and stepped outside.

Much of older downtown Konoha was tiered, walkways crisscrossing over the streets at lower levels, most of the higher levels being built into buildings that narrowed as they grew taller, sacrificing width to provide for the walkways. The apartment building my family lived in was one of those, meaning that stepping onto the walkway right outside and leaning on the railing had you looking right down at the street below. I'd always liked it; it provided for a pleasant feeling of vertical space.

There were also a lot of trees. Konoha was built in the middle of a very large forest, after all, and the First Hokage had been adamant that the city's origins show in its design. In the denser parts of the city, most of the ground was shaded a light, mottled green as bright sunlight penetrated the leaves above. When they said that Konoha was the village hidden in the leaves, they meant it.

Drawing chakra together and shaping it, I formed a hand seal and used the body flicker technique to get up to the nearest roof, causing the world to blur around me briefly as I sped upwards until the technique stopped me again. It provided near-instantaneous short-range travel, but it wasn't quite instant - even if sometimes it could sure look like it. If you blinked, it would be easy to mistake a person body flickering short distances for them simply vanishing and then reappearing somewhere else a moment later.

I glanced around the roof, feeling a little nervous that I might be stopped. I was a genin now, so I was technically authorized to travel on the rooftops unimpeded (this being by far the fastest way to get around the more densely populated parts of Konoha for any ninja). But I hadn't gotten my forehead protector marking my rank yet, so I hadn't really been formally promoted either. It was bending the rules a little, but it would have to do.

I started running along the roof, channeling chakra through my soles to latch on with my feet and give me solid footing. When I neared the five meter gap to the next building over, I expelled a tightly controlled burst of chakra out of my feet just as I jumped, giving me just enough of a boost to soar across the street instead of splatting on the walkways below. I landed running and laughed out loud; the feeling was exhilarating. I'd done this before, in class with instructors, but doing it on my own to actually get somewhere in a hurry was an entirely different feeling.

When I neared the campus of the Konoha Ninja Academy, I had to go back to running down on the streets. The area was flatter, culled of tall and tangled buildings and full of clear lines of sight. The enormous area dedicated to the education of Konoha's livelihood lay close to the center of Konoha, not too far from the Administration Building which housed the Council chambers and the Hokage tower.

The Hokage monument, too, was visible from campus; four huge faces of the previous and current Hokage carved into the mountain against which Konoha lay nestled. The view was quite spectacular. It was the one that was shown in most of the tourist brochures; pictures taken on sunny days, looking from the Fountain of Fire down the campus main street and straight onto the Administration Building with the Hokage monument as dramatic backdrop.

Very pretty, I was sure. I was too out of breath by now to really pay attention.

I was increasingly aware of time passing as I pelted down the streets past lower-year students who hadn't quite finished the year yet. When I finally arrived in the auditorium, the wall clock hanging outside the door was saying a minute to eight.

I put a hand on the door and took a moment to catch my breath.

"Thank the sage," I wheezed and brushed a lock of loose hair from my face. "I made it."

I waited a few more seconds just to get my breathing back under control before I opened the door and stepped inside. The lecture room was almost full. It could hold fifty people, and there were around forty in here. A row of people stood on the front podium; probably the prospective jounin team leaders.

I glanced around and found the girl I was looking for sitting halfway up, holding an empty seat beside her.

Yamanaka Ino. She was, like me and everybody else in here, a graduate from one of the first-grade classes. In addition to that, she was the sole heiress to the Yamanaka ninja clan, considered one of the most eligible young ninja in Konoha, scandalous darling of all the tabloids and rather pretty to boot. On top of all that, her clan trust meant she was very comfortable financially speaking.

She was also what passed for my best friend of nine years.

She grinned when she saw me and waved. I nodded and began making my way up the stairs at the side of the room. On the way up, I passed Naruto, who grinned and bobbed his head at me in greeting, his blonde hair shifting. I awkwardly smiled back. Uzumaki Naruto was friendly, strong, maybe a little silly, and wasn't known as the smartest of guys, but he came off all the better for it. He was well liked, I guess, if a bit of a mischievous prankster at times; decently indecent, if you would.

To his side sat his other half, Uchiha Izanami. She was pale, with long black hair and delicate features permanently set in a sour scowl. She glared at me as I passed, and I did my best to ignore her. Izanami glared at _everyone_, except maybe not Naruto, sometimes, and even when with him she did glare most of the time. I wasn't even sure her face was capable of doing anything but glaring or frowning; she'd been doing nothing else for so long that the ability must have completely disappeared.

If Ino was considered _one_ of the most eligible ninja in Konoha, Izanami was without a doubt _the_ most eligible, and also the one who was the farthest out of reach, if only because she would probably castrate anybody who even suggested anything of the sort, and _people could tell that about her_. Strangely enough, this only seemed to egg the attention on. People were absurd, sometimes. Maybe it was just that she was famous, and not just in Konoha or the Land of Fire, but internationally.

She was 'the last Uchiha', sole survivor of the Uchiha Massacre and Konoha's only remaining natural wielder of the Sharingan, as well as the little sister of the internationally notorious mass murderer Uchiha Itachi, who had carried out the Massacre. She was extremely talented, beautiful, smart (to hear others tell it, at least), and an absolutely horrible person. If I hadn't occasionally seen her accidentally look slightly human when she was with Naruto, I would have pegged her for a complete sociopath.

As it was, I only had her pegged as a near-complete sociopath.

I had been so shocked that I'd thrown up after my first full-contact bout with Izanami, back in the early days of first grade after I'd been entered due to my uncanny chakra control. It wasn't a good memory to be thinking about. She had trounced me so thoroughly within half a minute that I'd been left shaking for months after whenever I had to fight full-contact. She hadn't wounded me badly. Not physically, because that hadn't been allowed. But she'd done everything she could to make me taste defeat, to smear her unassailable superiority all over my face. And she _was_ good. I did have to give her that.

Being completely honest with myself, I loathed that self-absorbed, condescending, ruthless, stuck-up, inhuman, emotionless, automaton bitch. How Naruto could even stand being around her all the time… I didn't understand it. Perhaps he did it out of pity. She had no other friends. I felt bad for her future teammate, whoever it would be. Teammate, singular, because I felt sure that she and Naruto were probably going to be on a team together; he was practically the only person I knew who didn't seem to mind her constant company.

I finally reached Ino and sat down beside her. She leaned in close to me.

"You're late!" she whispered.

"Am not. They haven't even started yet."

"They're about to. Soon. I think you're the last to arrive."

I frowned. "Don't rub it in."

"What took you so long?"

"Overslept," I replied shortly, faintly embarrassed.

She grinned. "You did look pretty tired yesterday, after all that testing."

"Completely crushed," I confirmed sheepishly. "What a day."

"You need to work on your stamina!" She hit me lightly on the shoulder, teasing. I took the blow in good humor; it was well deserved. Ino knew I despised taijutsu training and working out.

An amiable silence fell between us.

I took the time to grab a closer look at the jounin who stood lined up down front. Our instructor, Umino Iruka, stood in front of them, his back turned to the room as he discussed something with them. Of the rest, there were two whom I immediately recognized with a faint chill from fame alone.

One was Sarutobi Asuma, the son of the Third Hokage, who had once belonged to the Twelve Guardians, the Fire Daimyo's personal elite ninja guard. I would absolutely not mind being assigned to _his_ team, that was for sure.

The other one I recognized was Hatake Kakashi of the Sharingan, Konoha's famous Copy Ninja, who was even more renowned than Sarutobi. As he was the only remaining Sharingan wielder in Konoha, one could say I had a pretty good idea as to who Izanami's assigned team leader would be. He was probably only here specifically to be her sensei.

I doubted I'd ever be assigned to someone like those two. I wasn't from an important clan and I had no bloodlines or special abilities to speak of. My gaze swept speculatively over the rest of the jounin, but I couldn't pick out any other familiar faces. Iruka exchanged a few last words with them, and turned around to face us.

"Students!" he called out. "Genin!"

A hush fell over the lecture room.

Iruka was beaming proudly as he looked out over his assembled students. "First of all, I would like to congratulate all forty-two of you on passing the exams yesterday. Not a single first-grade student failed this year."

There was a low murmur of thanks in response.

"You are here because you are the best Konoha has to offer!" Iruka continued. "You are here because—"

I sighed. It was the same spiel as always; he often went on about our virtues and our indomitable will of fire. Very inspiring the first few times you heard it, but there was so little variation that I quickly stopped paying my fullest attention, instead just keeping track of the general gist of what he was saying just in case anything new and relevant should pop up.

Ino yawned aside at me in an exaggerated fashion, her hand hiding it from the front of the room, and I grinned back in bemused half-agreement. At least Iruka seemed honestly proud, as if he really _meant_ what he was saying.

Finally, he came to something interesting; I perked up.

"Assembled behind me are fourteen jounin, who will personally test you and your capabilities to determine whether they will agree to act as the leader of your team. If they do not agree, a chuunin leader will be chosen for your team instead. I will now call out the teams as they were finalized last night; please step forward when your name is called and follow your jounin out of the room when your entire team has joined you."

He drew out a scroll from his vest pocket and started reading out loud.

"Team one! Jounin, Takahara Yumi."

A woman stepped forward. As Iruka called out names, three students collected in front of her, and then left with her. Then team two was called out. Slowly, the room began emptying of students as jounin took their teams and led them out to be tested.

As more and more teams were called out, I began to fidget nervously. I started biting my nail, then noticed I was doing it and stopped. Ten seconds later I was at it again. I sat on my hands.

Ino noticed and smirked. "At least you have the excitement of not knowing which team you'll be on. _I'm_ just gonna be on a team with Chouji and Shikamaru."

The tradition of putting Yamanaka, Nara and Akimichi ninja on the same teams went back generations. The three clan's signature abilities were highly complementary, and apparently the Administration went wholeheartedly in for the principle of 'if it ain't broke, don't fix it'.

I glanced at her. "Maybe I don't like excitement much."

Her eyes gleamed with humor. "Then you chose the wrong career."

I shrugged, conceding the point. Didn't mean I didn't have a bad case of butterflies. These were the people I'd probably be spending the next few _years_ with. It was _important_ who they were, and I wasn't getting a say. Of course I was nervous.

Team six finished being called up and Iruka called out, "Team Seven! Jounin: Hatake Kakashi."

I glanced up curiously. Kakashi had stepped forward.

"Haruno Sakura!" Iruka called.

"That's you!" Ino muttered excitedly. "You get Kakashi, damn you! I'm so envious!"

I sat frozen, barely even remembering to be stunned by the fact that they'd picked the _Copy Ninja_ as my potential sensei. This could only mean one thing.

_Oh no. No. They're just not going to do this to me._

Slowly, slightly in a daze as my mind raced aimlessly back and forth, achieving nothing, my body - bless the thing - acted for me on pure reflex. I stood up and started walking down the aisle to stand before Kakashi. Perhaps there was hope yet. Perhaps they _wouldn't_ go with the obvious choice.

When I arrived, Iruka called out the next name. "Uzumaki Naruto!"

My shoulders sagged slightly.

I should have been happy, really. Naruto would be a great teammate, I was sure. Instead, I had to keep myself from wincing. This only hammered the fact in deeper, like a nail scraping against a raw nerve. Naruto came to stand beside me and shot me a grin. I just closed my eyes briefly, tension wracking my body. I noticed that I was holding my breath.

And Iruka called out the last name with a finality that sank the nail in as far as it would go. "Uchiha Izanami!"

And there it was.

I breathed out deeply, opening my eyes again. The tension left me, and I felt kind of empty. Almost floaty. It was an odd kind of release, knowing instead of suspecting that I was completely fucked. Uchiha Izanami was my genin teammate.

I heard her footsteps approaching from behind, and Kakashi spoke. "Let's go. We'll talk en route."

His voice was surprisingly normal for an internationally recognized ninja. I didn't know what I had been expecting. He turned and left. We followed in silence, and I began gathering my thoughts together again. No matter what, I had to be coherent now. It wasn't easy. I was worn out after weeks of preparation for the exams, as if I'd gathered all the energy I had together and spent it, and now I was being called upon to continue spending when what I really needed to do was recharge.

_Better get used to it_, I told myself.

In the hallway outside, Kakashi spoke again, turning his head slightly over his shoulder to look at us. "We're going to training ground seventeen, outside the city. But first, we'll catch a break somewhere and have a chat."

He had his hands in his pockets, his posture was slightly slouched and he shuffled more than walked. I wasn't falling for it. You didn't get to the place he was by being a lazy bum. But appearing to be a lazy bum, I reckoned, could actually have its advantages, cause enemies to underestimate you unconsciously. I was determined that I, at least, wouldn't be making _that_ mistake.

We walked outside and found a nearby spot where a few wooden benches had been placed in the shade of a large oak. Kakashi leaned against the tree. Naruto promptly sat down on a bench, his bearing casual and at ease. Izanami didn't sit, but remained standing, her arms crossed, wearing one of her eternal frowns. I compromised, leaning myself on the edge of a bench and crossing my arms in turn.

I looked at Kakashi, who was peering at us and hadn't said anything yet. It gave me the time to study my potential sensei closer. He had white hair despite being at most middle-aged and wore a dark blue bandana which covered most of his face. He had his forehead protector on at an angle so it covered up his left eye. All that left ominously little of his face visible.

I knew that through some circumstance or other, he'd wound up with a transplanted Sharingan as his left eye during the Third Great Ninja War. The eye left him able to learn and make use of the techniques of his opponents even in the middle of combat, and had caused him to be of immense value to Konoha since the fall of the Uchiha clan.

The Sharingan wasn't just a tactical asset, but a strategic one. Users remembered the techniques they copied, and could write them down and teach them to others in time. The Uchiha Massacre had almost completely eliminated Konoha's unique advantage in that area. There was only Kakashi and Izanami left.

After a few awkward seconds, Kakashi clapped his hands together and rubbed them. "All right. I thought the higher-ups had given up on ever getting me to tutor a genin squad, but apparently there's still a single optimist left somewhere in the Administration. So we'll give it a try, why don't we?"

That… sounded a little ominous. I glanced at Izanami and Naruto. Their expressions hadn't changed much.

"For starters," Kakashi continued, "I thought we could introduce ourselves, get to know each other."

"We've been in the same class for _eight years_," Izanami said shortly. "And we all know _you_."

Kakashi glanced at her. "Okay. But that doesn't mean _I_ know _you_." He tilted his head slightly at her. "Why don't you start? Tell us about yourself, what you like, dislike, what ambitions you have."

Izanami didn't react for a second, her face frozen. I averted my gaze to the ground and had to keep myself from smirking.

"I don't see what's so important about what I like or dislike," she said. "Eventually I'm going to kill Uchiha Itachi." She shrugged with her arms still crossed. "Not much else to it."

Kakashi stared at her for a long moment, his expression unreadable - and not just because of the mask. "Fair enough."

"Drama queen," Naruto muttered under his breath, loud enough for all to hear.

Izanami just glanced at him, rolling her eyes. He grinned shamelessly in response.

"Alright," Kakashi said and looked at Naruto. "You next."

Naruto frowned thoughtfully and bit his lip for a moment, then glanced around at all of us with a slight, self-conscious grin.

"I'm Uzumaki Naruto. I guess I'm not really that heavy on the ambitions. Life's a day to day thing, you know? I aim on getting by." He cleared his throat. "I like ramen—"

"You mean 'worship'," Izanami muttered under her breath. My eyes narrowed. Was that… a joke? Gods.

Naruto glanced at her. "I was talking, Izzie."

Izanami scowled at him, and my lip twitched.

"Okay…" Naruto continued. "I like ramen… uh. Probably a lot of other stuff too. Nothing's coming up right now. I hate homework and quizzes and chakra control exercises." He glanced significantly at Izanami who'd cleared her throat just then. "Even though I have to do them. A _lot_. I know."

Kakashi's eyes had narrowed thoughtfully at that, glancing between the two. "Okay," he said, and nodded at me.

Even though I'd had some time already to think, it caught me off guard. I hesitated.

_Just keep it simple, down to earth, and truthful. Right._

"I'm Haruno Sakura. I want to… to…" I hesitated sheepishly. "This is going to sound stupid, but I really just want to help people out and… generally make the world _better_."

Kakashi just nodded frankly, to my surprise. I purposefully didn't look at Naruto and Izanami. I could just imagine Izanami's expression, and this was for Kakashi's benefit, anyway.

"I like… applied seal theory, and tests and quizzes," I continued quickly. "And I don't like sleeping in and wasting my time."

_Very deep, Sakura._

Well, it would have to do.

"Good," Kakashi said. I wasn't sure if he was referring to me, or to the whole process in general. He looked the three of us over, almost curiously. "Izanami, Sakura. You two are the top ranking graduates, this year, with the same average. And Naruto, you're… well, you'd know what I'm talking about."

Naruto nodded in a clipped sort of way, looking a little uncomfortable for a brief moment.

I frowned. _What's that all about?_

"Let's just say I have every reason to be counting on the three of you not to disappoint me," Kakashi finished off. "Let's see how well you do surprise."

He disappeared, kicking up a few leaves.

It took me almost half a second to realize that he'd managed to prepare a body flicker without us realizing it. He_ hadn't moved a finger._

Izanami disappeared, too.

I darted to where Kakashi had been leaning against the tree. There were still traces of chakra that hadn't dissipated, where the technique had displaced air from in front of him to behind him in order to facilitate his movement. I could _feel_ it on my skin. The direction… roughly… I turned and looked at a nearby rooftop.

It was one of the weaknesses of the standard body flicker technique, due to it being so expensive in chakra. If you knew it was being formed, it was easy to predict its trajectory and destination point if that was anywhere near you and use that to strike against your enemy as he appeared. Likewise, it was easy to follow for a short period, as long as you knew where its origin point was.

Naruto was already forming the hand seal. I did likewise, feeding the technique the necessary amount of chakra. I arrived a moment behind him.

Kakashi was waiting there, with Izanami. It had taken me maybe two or three seconds to follow along. Same for Naruto.

I got the sense that Kakashi was smirking ever so slightly, behind his mask. "Stragglers get the boot," he said, and disappeared again. This time I could see where he'd gone; another nearby rooftop.

By the time we'd arrived a second later, he was already gone again, running this time, jumping from the rooftop to a tree-branch and then down to the ground.

I followed as best I could, wind tearing at my hair as we traveled. It wasn't a question of perception, but simply raw speed. I had a sense he was taking it easy, but I was already tiring a little bit. I could feel how I hadn't really recovered all of my chakra and energy from my morning sprint. I had a feeling the rest of the day wouldn't be any better.

We zipped across Konoha, leaving the campus area behind in the first few minutes and returning to the rooftops where we had the clearest lines of sight. I did my best to conserve energy, skipping the difficult or downright impossible bits with body flickers and otherwise sticking just to running and jumping with regular chakra boosts. Occasionally I'd catch glances of Naruto and Izanami, out of the corner of my eye or up ahead of me.

Izanami was staying close on Kakashi's heels and was making it look almost _easy_, and Naruto was throwing out body flickers like they were candy and chakra was free. But I knew he had larger than usual chakra reserves - definitely the largest in class, I thought - and could probably afford to do that. Some people just got lucky that way. I was on the low end of the chakra pool, but conversely, at least my control was _very_ good. When I body flickered, I did so _efficiently_, wasting as little chakra as I could possibly get away with.

I could only hope that it would be enough, for now. I renewed my effort, keeping up with the others.

I noticed with a small feeling of dread that we were indeed heading towards training ground seventeen outside the city, as Kakashi had mentioned. It was pretty far outside of the city, if I recalled the maps I'd seen correctly. I decided not to think too much about it, concentrating on the moment.

Step, jump, control your breath, body flicker, run, jump, turn, jump, land, breath, body flicker.

It was ceaseless. Just a long sequence of singular movement. I sank into it, just going with the flow, feeling my body as it slowly wore out, aches making themselves known, muscles starving for oxygen, chakra coils burning faintly as I strained to pull out the chakra I needed for every augmented movement and every body flicker.

We passed through an open gate in the seal-engraved walls encircling and shielding the city and out into the large, grassy area of cleared forest around the wall. We were outside of Konoha, now. We zipped across the cleared area, and onward into the forest proper. Training ground seventeen lay somewhere ahead of us.

I was falling behind, slowly but steadily. Kakashi was about two hundred meters ahead of me, glimpsed only sometimes through the trees. Izanami had fallen behind him as well, maybe a hundred and fifty meters ahead of me. Naruto was front runner now, still keeping up with Kakashi and from what I saw still blowing chakra on an excess of body flickers exactly like he had in the beginning.

_Just how much chakra does he _have…_?_ I thought numbly.

We crossed the borders of the training ground, leaping over an electrified fence which was mostly just intended to keep out wild animals and common civilians. I was beginning to really wear out. I could feel it. I'd gone from the almost pleasant burning feeling of exhaustion you got from vigorous exercise to the stone-heavy aching feeling you got when you simply pushed yourself too far.

But we were almost there; the training ground was only so large. Kakashi had to stop sometime soon.

_Just a little farther._

As we headed over the crest of a hill and down into a smaller valley, I could see a river up ahead, next to a small clearing. It was the only noticeable feature around. Half a kilometer, maybe. I could only hope.

I thought I maybe still had a bit of chakra to spare. It was hard to tell in the heat of the moment, but while it hurt when I drew on my chakra, it wasn't downright excruciating yet. I wasn't all empty. I ran for a hundred more meters, gathering myself, then went for a series of body flickers in quick succession, the forest whizzing past me in separate blurs. It brought me over the river and into the clearing proper. Kakashi was waiting in the middle of it, by a series of small wooden poles. Naruto was already there and Izanami arrived by them a few moments later.

I half-ran, half-staggered the rest of the way. When I finally arrived, I fell to my knees, heaving for breath. I didn't care if it was undignified. My throat tasted of metal and it almost hurt to breathe. Izanami, at least, looked rather out of breath as well, strands of hair plastered to her sweaty face. She didn't even bother removing them. I was a little surprised at that. She was supposed to be the one who was perfect at everything, wasn't she?

A glance at Naruto, however, shocked me slightly. He was red-faced, sure, and panting a little bit. But he was standing, and his limbs weren't shaking from exhaustion. He looked… exercised, not crushed.

I noticed that Kakashi was looking us over, once again. When his eye fell on Naruto, it narrowed slightly as if confirming some suspicion or prediction.

_Something is going on there_, I thought raggedly. _But now is really not the time to wonder about it._

"So!" Kakashi began, after giving us a few moments. "That's it for the warm-up." He crossed his arms, and noted mildly while looking at me, "I believe I mentioned that stragglers would get the boot."

My breath caught. If anybody had been a straggler, it was me.

"It's good I was lying about that, isn't it?" he continued cheerfully.

…_That bastard._

Yet I breathed freely again, fighting down a small spell of dizziness.

"I did want to see how far you were willing to push yourself, though," he went on. "Today, after all, has only just begun. Allow me to at least tell you, if you're feeling a little intimidated, that no team has ever passed my genin test before. Quite a few have tried, these past years."

I was too out of breath to feel offended or even terrified. Clearly, the man was insane. I didn't know who the optimist was, the one who Kakashi had theorized might exist in the Administration, but right now I wanted to _kill _that person.

"Someone's gotta be the first."

I glanced up. Naruto had spoken. He grinned faintly. "Might as well be us, I mean."

Kakashi looked at him. "Not the first. The last team which passed this test, as far as I am aware, was mine. And before that, it was the Sannin. I like to think of it as a tradition worth continuing."

Which meant Kakashi's team, which had been led by the Fourth Hokage, Namikaze Minato, before he became Hokage, and the team which had been led by the Third Hokage, Sarutobi Hiruzen, and had later become known as the three Sannin, who were arguably three of the most powerful ninja Konoha had ever produced.

I was beginning to feel a little out of my depth, here.

Naruto shrugged. "So we've just gotta top them, right?"

Kakashi blinked.

I stared at Naruto, aware that my mouth was hanging slightly open and not doing anything about it almost on purpose.

_Right, yes_, I thought. _We're just gonna go ahead and top three of the most legendary ninja Konoha has ever produced. Right. Of course._

Out of the corner of my eye, I noticed that Izanami was looking at me. She noticed me noticing, shot me a small, cold glare, then looked back up at Kakashi. My mouth closed in a snap.

"Just tell us what the test is," she said shortly.

Kakashi, still staring at Naruto, who seemed oblivious to the reactions he was getting, tore his gaze away and glanced at Izanami.

"Right," he began. "It's actually very simple." He held up one hand. From it dangled two small, round bells. He glanced from them to us. "There are two bells. There are three of you. The person who doesn't get a bell, gets the boot."

My mouth fell slightly open again. I looked frantically between Naruto and Izanami. They were both sharing a meaningful glance. Then their gazes fell on me for a moment and Naruto's turned away, almost guiltily.

My stomach sank, and I slowly swallowed.

_Damn._

* * *

**CHAPTER END**

* * *

On the face of it, the nature of chakra seems fundamentally absurd.

The gulf between modern physics as we know them, and the so-called chakra sciences, has yet to close. While theories abound, some less far-flung than others, the general consensus is that _something_ is going on in a baser level of reality than we have thus far managed to uncover empirically, and that nobody really knows what that something is, and that if any ninja do, then—as is common for their kind—they are keeping those secrets to themselves.

The five basic elemental chakra natures of fire, earth, wind, water and lightning have, as far as we know, no discovered basis in the laws of reality. Fire is simply the gaseous product of exothermic combustion. Earth is a mixture of common minerals. Wind is the flow of gases. Water is nothing but hydrogen and oxygen. Lightning is an electrical discharge.

Often, elements can produce effects that may seem intuitively sound to the layman, but are completely unrelated or unrealistic in actuality (winds that cut, lightning that grants penetrative power, and so forth). Note that this does not prevent them from working. The reason for this dissonance is not known, but seems, strange as it sounds, to correlate to commonly held preconceptions in society a thousand years ago, when these abilities first began to appear in the historical record (for more on this hypothesis, see this issue's article on p. 36, "The Sage: Myth or Messiah? A look at the origin of modern history").

There are further chakra sub-elements, consisting of mixtures of basic elements. Whether these are predetermined 'elements' or a fundamentally separate emergent phenomenon is not certain, since often certain bloodlines or other inherent abilities seem to be necessary for their use. The most famous example of this would be the First Hokage's bloodline-restricted element, the Wood element, purportedly combining earth and water.

It is not known whether there is a limit on how many distinct chakra sub-elements there truly are. It should be noted that there are rumored cases of different users combining the same two basic elements in different ways to produce two markedly different end results. There may be an endless variety, limited only by the imagination.

It is strange that we empirically know so little about how chakra-based abilities work in reality, even with plenty of access to the phenomena through hired ninja or proficient researchers. It is safe to say, though, that while much is known about chakra's workings within the context of its own domain, there is still a fundamental breakthrough waiting to happen that will unify the two separate realms.

This special issue is dedicated to exploring the strange contradictions and wonders of the world of chakra. Read on to find out more.

—_Yamagato Ando, "Editor-in-Chief's Introduction", p. 2, Science Illustrated Magazine Issue 97 - "The World of Chakra"  
_

* * *

As a general rule, reviews make authors happy. As a specific rule, reviews make _me_ ecstatic. Click that button. Write those words on your mind. You know you want to.


	2. Spark 2

Where did chakra come from? Why does it work like it does? Why the sudden and baffling appearance of the intelligent animal races in the archaeological record? And from whence came the nine tailed beasts? The answers to all of these questions can be found with the Sage of the Six Paths.

Legend, you say! Stories! The Sage is a myth, a make-believe messiah, an expression of cultural need in a time of suffering and despair. Hogwash! There is ample evidence of his existence, such as the great upheaval that took place a thousand years ago when the Sage is believed to have lived.

All known archeological remnants of pre-Sage civilization indicate a complete lack of knowledge concerning modern methods of chakra manipulation. The best known early references to chakra having other uses than knowledge and control of self, as in ancient Kriya Yoga techniques, are millennia old preserved scrolls in the possession of the Natama Monks - the oldest of which dates to 0-10 AS! Clearly, the Sage brought us the ability to manipulate chakra, and with that he brought us the modern world of ninja and samurai.

The Sage, it is said, tamed the legendary ten-tailed beast, known throughout the world by many names; Khonsu, Chang'e, and here in the elemental nations, the Juubi. The Sage became the first and strongest Jinchuuriki, and from the Juubi's incredible power he created nine lesser tailed beasts. But there are stories of him that supposedly date to _before_ that event. I propose that the Sage was noteworthy due to something else before he tamed the Juubi, and that 'something else' was the thing that first raised the Sage above normal men and into the province of Godhood.

Enter into this equation the legends of his Rinnegan eyes, and an answer begins to suggest itself.

— _Kanazawai Miyagi, "Changer of Worlds", Excerpt of Introduction._

* * *

_You ceased being children the moment you passed your exams._

* * *

"You can start whenever you feel ready," Kakashi said. "I'll be waiting."

He body flickered halfway across the clearing and pulled out a book, starting to read, his stance easy and relaxed.

Izanami frowned, staring at him. "Are you kidding me?"

"What…?" Naruto muttered, glancing at Kakashi.

"He's reading porn. _Jiraiya's_ porn."

"What, that Icha-Icha stuff you see in the corner stores?" Naruto asked. "That's ballsy. I think I like him already."

_She can _see_ that?_ I thought. Kakashi must have been at least fifty meters away. I looked at Izanami and saw the crimson of her activated Sharingan eyes. In each eye there were two small black tomoe dots on a background of mottled, stripy dark red that consumed the rest of the eye.

_Telescopic vision or incredible eyesight_, I thought._ That's not in the books. Then again, I suppose that's a footnote compared to all the rest._

I shook my head. Right now we had a test to solve, and something was wrong; the facts didn't fit.

"Let's get on with it," Izanami said.

"Yeah," Naruto said.

"Hey—! Wait!", I said, but they were already speeding off towards either side of Kakashi. Naruto body flickered and Izanami ran. They moved in from both sides of Kakashi. He didn't move, or even glance up from his book. I didn't have time to intervene, and I was still too out of breath to do anything anyways.

"Damn," I said, putting my hand to my head. "Damn, damn, damn. Think. _Think_."

_This doesn't make any sense._

I looked up and came to a decision. I would wait for an opportune time. If I was right, and I damn well _ought_ to be, it would come.

Izanami drew the two wakizashi strapped to her back. From what I knew, they were her preferred weapons, though she knew her way around most bladed weapons. Naruto, meanwhile, just clenched his fists tighter. He used few weapons, and nothing more complex than plain shuriken and kunai.

And then there wasn't time to ponder any more. The two engaged Kakashi in a whirl of fists and blades, and he made fighting them look like the easiest thing in the world. I couldn't help but be impressed; I knew jounin were good—any proper jounin could take a single team of fresh genin without trouble. It was another thing to see it with my own eyes. Naruto and Izanami were both incredibly good; they were two of the best taijutsu fighters this year - far above my level, certainly - but it didn't seem to matter so much, right now.

They were both darting about Kakashi in a complicated combination of thrusts, jabs, kicks, jumps and dodges, attacking and trying to pressure him, but he didn't _look_ pressured. Not a single hit was landing. He was switching between languid, easy movements and blurred bursts of speed as he sabotaged their efforts, directing their attacks at one another or throwing their balance when he wasn't where they'd expected him to be a moment ago.

He still held his book in one hand, and, while he was ducking under a high kick from Naruto, he turned a page.

_Wow. He's still reading._

Without warning, he dropped his book, stepped to the side of one of Izanami's attacks and, with a blur of motion, he was holding her by an arm, putting a kunai to her throat. I barely had time to smirk before she disappeared in a puff of smoke, a medium-sized boulder crashing to the ground in her stead. Naruto began a technique as if Izanami's disappearance had been his cue. Half a second later Kakashi exploded and reappeared twenty meters to the left. Grass rustled around Naruto and he turned towards Kakashi, a blast of wind blasting forth from him, tearing up dirt and grass.

I frowned. _A wind technique? But we haven't learned elemental techniques!_

A ball of fire swept in from the side of the clearing. I just barely had time to realize what was happening and throw up my arms to cover my face. I felt a blistering heat on my skin and then the shockwave hit with a deafening thunder, making me stumble back.

Blinking, I lowered my arm, to see smoke and flame billowing from a large crater in the middle of the clearing. Small lumps of dirt and grass still pattered down here and there, trailing wisps of smoke. Kakashi was off to the other side of the clearing now, brushing off his book with a worried look.

_That was a combined wind-fire technique_, I thought. _They're already that good with their elemental affinities? They—they must have practiced that for _years_!_

Elemental affinities had only been touched upon lightly at the academy. I had a fairly strong basic earth affinity, and a far weaker water affinity, but they remained uncultivated - learning the basics of an affinity was supposed to be _extremely_ difficult and absorbing.

_Obviously that hasn't held _them_ back._

Izanami jogged up to where Naruto had retreated. They exchanged a few words and shot guarded glances at Kakashi; there wasn't a scratch on him while Naruto was rubbing his ribs sorely and Izanami was drooping, breathing heavily.

Kakashi took a step forward and they both took a step back. This just seemed to encourage him, and he began walking towards them.

_Now is my chance_, I thought.

I body flickered in between Kakashi and them, triggered a kunai with an explosive tag attached, and threw it in the air. It exploded ten meters above me and Kakashi stopped walking and glanced up. This gave me the time I needed to flick open a pocket on the back of my belt and let a small scroll fall to the ground behind me, hidden by my legs.

Slowly, carefully, I took a small, shuffling step backwards and stepped hard on the scroll, pushing it out of sight into the soft grass. I made sure to keep my gaze firmly on Kakashi, and gulped—I would look like I was intimidated. Fair enough. I was.

I sent out a pulse of chakra from my feet and felt it take. It didn't take much; I could easily keep it up for a while even when I was running this low. I kept it running, very, very carefully keeping the level of chakra I was putting out stable.

A bead of sweat trickled down my forehead.

I pulled two kunai from my belt, one of them tied to a length of chakra-conducting metal wire. My arms felt like lead, my legs were shaking, and I wasn't even sure if it was from exhaustion or sheer terror. Kakashi was watching me with curiosity, giving me time to work. I really hoped Naruto and Izanami were taking this opportunity to retreat and regroup.

Kakashi took a step towards me and I threw the kunai with the chakra-conducting wire at him—my aim was slightly off, but it didn't matter for what I had in mind. Kakashi leaned to one side to let it pass. Half a meter past him the kunai stopped as the wire drew taut. Kakashi turned to strike it away or cut the string and I sent a pulse of chakra down the wire. The kunai detonated, carving out a chunk of earth, setting fire to the grass around it and covering the area around Kakashi in smoke.

_Any moment now,_ I thought, and began concentrating on the area behind me as I recalled it. There'd been a moss-covered tree stump by a large bush…

_Location, destination, relation_, I recited to myself, visualizing it.

The smoke from the explosion cleared and, as I'd expected, Kakashi wasn't there. I turned in a circle, clutching my other kunai tight. I saw that Naruto and Izanami had indeed made themselves scarce, and then stopped, my breath catching. The tip of something was pressed softly into the small of my back.

"A kunai exploding without an explosive tag attached," Kakashi said from behind me. "It's been a while since I saw that trick. Where did you learn how to do it? I know you wouldn't have access to that stuff in the Academy's regular library."

_Thank the sage he didn't just attack me_, I thought. That had been the major weakness of this plan. I bit my lip. I'd expected this, counted on it, but I was still incredibly unnerved.

I suppressed a feeling of disappointment. Somebody else had done the same? And here I thought I was being original. "Figured it out myself," I said, fighting to keep my voice from wavering and the flow of chakra from my feet nice and steady.

"I can see why you've got the top academic score in your year," he said. "But it's not really winning you this fight. It's not going too well, is it?"

"We'll see," I said. I ceased the flow of chakra to my feet, triggered the kunai in my other hand and let it drop. I started forming seals and threw myself forward to get just that much farther away from Kakashi while it mattered, my eyes fixing on the log I'd visualized before. Chakra poured out of me and I felt the pull take hold. Then I was on my hands and knees at the edge of the clearing on a small patch of earth where the log had been lying before.

I fell flat on the ground. And not just because of the sudden burst of exhaustion as I squeezed out chakra I'd only just recovered to perform the substitution technique. I shut my eyes tight and pressed my hands over my ears. I was far too close for my own comfort. If this worked—

A flash of light, the inner side of my eyelids turning bright red—

A clap of thunder shaking my bones and the ground beneath me heaving up—

Barely time to feel elation mixed with fear, and the shock wave tore over me, ripping at my hair and clothes so hard it hurt. I dug my hands into the ground, and then it was over. I lay there, silent, as my ears rang and I processed what had just happened.

_It worked_, I thought, dazed. _It really worked._

I fought myself up onto my elbows, staring at ground zero. I couldn't see much for the billowing smoke. Large chunks of earth were crashing down across the clearing, though I seemed to be safe enough at this distance.

I'd dropped the kunai just to make him let me go, and to force him to get what I considered at least a somewhat safe distance away. I wasn't sure even Kakashi would have escaped unscathed, but it would be hard to wrap my mind around the fact if he hadn't. He was the _Copy Ninja_. And he was nowhere to be seen at all.

No, he was probably all right. Either that, or I'd just managed to literally obliterate my sensei.

But, at least…

"That'll distract him," I said numbly, and started pushing myself to my feet. I hoped Kakashi would take the hint to vanish and give me a little while to track down and talk some sense into Naruto and Izanami.

"What the _fuck_ was that?!" someone yelled.

I jumped and spun. Naruto had stepped out from behind a tree and was staring wide-eyed at where the smoke was just beginning to clear from the crater.

"Get back!" I hissed and ran over to pull him back behind the tree. He continued staring and allowed himself to be dragged. Izanami was behind there, too, peering out, but I barely spared her a glance, continuing a little further into the forest underbrush until we couldn't see the clearing any more when I looked back.

Then I turned around and released Naruto, not surprised to see that Izanami had followed us. Naruto frowned at me, patting his shirt where I'd gripped it. "Was that _you?_"

I nodded. "I just wanted to distract him, buy me some time to talk to _you_."

Both of them were staring at me now, Izanami frowning and Naruto with his mouth open. I shrunk back.

"What?" I asked in a small voice.

"What _was_ that?" Naruto asked.

"A roll of explosive tags," I said quickly. "I made it."

Naruto blinked. "I thought they didn't work right that way."

"They don't," Izanami scoffed. "The fuse timing is too imprecise; by far most of the tags are ruined by the tag that goes off first."

I didn't really know what to say to that, that wouldn't just seem overly arrogant. _I fixed it_, maybe?_ Shut up, it worked_? No. I just shrugged. Naruto opened his mouth, but then closed it again without saying anything after a moment. I took the time to gather my thoughts.

"Look," I said. "We can talk about all that later, right now we need to talk about the test. We need to work together, here."

"Three people working together to get two bells?" Izanami asked snidely. "Who's not getting one?"

"No," I said, relishing the opportunity to say this. "You're being stupid, this is obvious. He said whole teams had passed before, not parts of them. As far as I know, the Sannin are three, not two, so all of us can pass the test. The test isn't about getting the bells. It's something else."

There was silence for a moment as they stared at me again.

"Great, I feel dumb now," Naruto said. "Izanami?"

Izanami said nothing for a moment, frozen in place. Then she crossed her arms and looked away. "It… makes sense."

"Just think about it," I said. "The test has to be something else or it would just be stupid, and Kakashi is not stupid—we'd have no chance getting the bells from a jounin even if we worked together, especially not against someone like him."

"Speak for yourself," Izanami muttered.

I turned to look at her. "I'm not the one who just spent five minutes being slapped around out there," I said before I could even think about it.

Izanami glared at me, crimson eyes furious, and for a moment I thought she was about to attack. Naruto stepped between us and cleared his throat. Izanami clenched her jaw, working it for a second, and then she turned her head away, as if trying to glare a defenseless bush to death.

I let out a breath I hadn't realized I was holding, my heart pounding in my chest. What in the world had brought me to say that?

"Okay, let's relax," Naruto said after a moment of tense silence. "We all agree that the actual test probably isn't the…" his brows furrowed "…actual test. So we'll have to work together, right?"

"Right," I said with relief.

There was a pause.

"…Right," Izanami grumbled, still looking away.

"So let's figure this out," Naruto said and turned to look at me. I blinked, struck dumb for a moment.

"It's not about brute force…" I began hesitantly, and Naruto nodded. "The first thing he did was exhaust us," I said with more confidence, "He tried to harry us and make us…" my gaze flickered towards Izanami, despite my best efforts, and I continued quickly "… short-tempered. Then we get the actual test, which just seems _designed_ to drive a wedge between us and split us up when what we're actually supposed to do is… work together, somehow. He wouldn't tire us out like that beforehand if we were supposed to have an actual chance against him. The odds would be bad enough without that."

"So the key to passing the test is working together?" Naruto said, sounding doubtful.

I shrugged. "I… don't think it's that simple. But that has to be the level to think on. The more social or abstract aspects, not the martial ones."

"Bullshit," Izanami said, glaring at me. "You just want in because without us you don't stand a chance."

I grit my teeth and willed myself not to respond.

Naruto looked at Izanami. "Relax, will you," he said. "I think she's right. _You_ think she's right." He hesitated a moment, shooting me a funny glance. "And she did just blow up half of the clearing because she wanted to _talk_. Better let her, y'know… talk."

A corner of Izanami's lips turned up ever so slightly, a glimmer of something in her eye. "True," she muttered. Then, she nodded tiredly. "Okay, Naruto. Whatever."

I kept myself from glaring at her and nodded a brief thanks to Naruto.

He grinned. "Whatever. Right. So we want the bells. But not really."

"I think our best bet is to try and get the bells together. Prove we can work together even under adverse conditions and psychological pressure." I glanced at Izanami. "If we _do_ get them, then we can decide who gets the bells then, _if_ that's relevant."

Naruto shrugged. "Okay. I don't have any better ideas. I don't suppose you have any clever ideas as to _how_ we might work together?"

My eyes narrowed as I considered our situation. Izanami was leaning tiredly against a tree and even Naruto looked the worse for wear; if not exhausted, then battered. And my legs were trembling just from the effort of standing up straight.

What _did_ I have?

_What do I have, and how can I use that to get what I want?_

* * *

Half an hour later, I was frantically blundering my way through a faltering series of parries and blows with Kakashi. Naruto came bulldozing in from my left with a barrage of wind techniques that just barely missed me and engaged Kakashi in a frenzy of blows. Izanami followed shortly after in a whirl of kunai and shuriken controlled by chakra wires, sporting a nasty limp and a snarl on her face.

The two were clearly used to fighting together. Naruto kept Kakashi off-balance, on the move, with a never-ending onslaught of powerful blows, and Izanami struck with economical, cold, ruthless precision, leveraging every gap and covering for Naruto's more plainly telegraphed moves. She was down to plain basics by now, having lost both of her wakizashi, one lying broken on the ground somewhere and the other flung off into the forest underbrush.

At least I'd convinced them that if there were a time to go all out, this was it. So we'd taken twenty minutes to rest up, which Kakashi seemed to graciously have allowed us, and then we'd tracked him down and attacked in unison.

The fight was different now than it had been before. Naruto and Izanami were really laying on the pressure and pulling out all the stops, and now I was here too. Kakashi still handled us with what looked like frustrating ease and without even harming us seriously while we by now were doing our honest best to kill him. But he wasn't reading any more, his book forgotten somewhere on the ground. He didn't have time to slack off, he actually had to pay attention to us.

Relieved of the pressure Kakashi had been putting on me, I backed off and took a second to think, my breath huffing and every muscle feeling ready to give out. I was out of explosive kunai and almost out of the regular kind. My last explosive tags, shuriken and chakra wire had been donated to Izanami in the name of the mission. I was too out of sorts to even start _thinking_ about the thousands of ryo of personal equipment I was blowing on this.

This was not going well. The bells were always tantalizingly out of grasp. For minutes now we'd been trying to maneuver Kakashi into confirming that my plan was viable, but we'd had no such luck yet. Only, if we didn't do it first, this could be _dangerous_. Completely, utterly insane and dangerous.

I was incredibly happy mum and dad weren't here to tell me what they thought, because if they had been, I would still be grounded when I turned fifty.

_Well_, I told myself, swallowing on a painfully dry throat. It hurt and tasted a bit like blood. _We're running out of options here. Prioritize._

I backed away toward where the grass was thicker, gathered my chakra, stuck a hand in one of my equipment belts, and fished out what looked like yet another, innocent small scroll. Only not. It was identical to the one I'd used before. I gave my utmost attention to controlling the flow of chakra to my hand. This part was crucial.

Needless to say, Izanami at once noticed my slight movement out of the corner of her eye, and shot me a hard look. I licked dry lips and nodded quickly. Then the glimpse of a moment was over and her full attention was on Kakashi again. She started maneuvering around him, pulling out the last of her now sparse supply of chakra-wired shuriken and throwing them out in wide arcs, seeking to cut off Kakashi's routes of escape. While she was doing that, her fingers and hands flickered in spare moments and chakra began to flare around her as she worked up some fire technique.

I had to admit to being impressed with her performance; in taijutsu and ninjutsu, from a purely skill-based point of view, she was so far above me it wasn't even funny. In classes and sparring sessions she always fought with a casual, icy calmness, as if she wanted to prove that she didn't _need_ to make an effort to trounce anyone she laid her eyes on. I was beginning to realize that she'd probably acted like that because it was _true_. If Konoha hadn't been at peace for two decades she would have graduated early, years and years ago.

She had maneuvered so Kakashi was now directly between me and her.

Kakashi caught on to the fact that something was up. He sidestepped out of the way of a kunai thrown by Naruto, crouched under a trio of shuriken thrown by Izanami and cut the wire of a fourth, letting it fall harmlessly to the ground before it made its way back to him. Then he made to dash off to the side. Naruto blocked his way with a sustained blast of wind powerful enough to tear up grass, dirt and rocks. Kakashi was forced back from the attack - I figured even he wouldn't take something like that head on. He turned around once, quickly, and then his complete attention was on Izanami's fire technique.

Flame was spilling out from her hands and racing across the ground, forming a wide circle of white-hot fire around Kakashi which was almost complete already. As it closed, it touched the wind chakra from Naruto's attack, and where the two types of chakra intermingled they crackled violently as their users began to sync up their chakra flow, enabling compatibility. This was the part that took years of training together. Once the reaction took, it wouldn't need a lot of input from Izanami; it was a almost self-sustaining reaction as long as there was enough wind chakra to go around, and Naruto was piling it on.

He was already performing another technique, reshaping his attack into a huge, whirling tornado centered on Kakashi. I was beginning to lose sight of Kakashi in the midst of the quickly expanding conflagration. He was looking at the inferno around himself appraisingly, without panic.

_Of course._

The ring of fire consumed Naruto's chakra eagerly, eating it up and growing so fast it was almost an explosion in itself. An enormous, towering pillar of flames engulfed Kakashi. Patches of grass around the tornado were catching fire. Naruto was laughing madly and waving his arms at his creation, pumping more chakra into it.

I could feel the heat of it almost blistering my skin from here. Even though I was anticipating them, I almost missed the three small explosive-tagged kunai coming out of the center of the tornado straight at me, laced with fire chakra to protect them from the worst of the flames.

It had to be convincing, after all.

I threw myself sideways, then accidentally stumbled and crashed to the ground. One of the kunai zipped past the space that I'd occupied, and another landed right in front of me.

_Not as planned—!_ I managed to think to myself before I forced my attention away and started rolling to the side. I wasn't quite fast enough; the explosion sent me flying like a rag doll, everything in my hands torn from my grip. I landed on my right arm with a strangled cry. My shoulder and back were searing bright with pain and my head felt like molasses.

I struggled to think, to act, there was something I was supposed to do…

_The plan—!_

Everything snapped into clear relief. I reached my hand out to where the scroll would have dropped with a half-choked, anguished scream. A second? Two? Too late?

Strong arms engulfed me and I felt the immediate, sharp pull of a substitution technique. I fell onto the wet, moldy earth of forest underbrush, and some of it was shoved into my mouth by the impact. I spat and coughed, trying to push myself upright, but I didn't have the strength or the control.

_Focus._

Someone pulled me upright and turned me around. I blinked, my vision swimming and darkening for a moment until it cleared again. We were a few dozen meters or so into the forest, close to the river. Above, the trees shaded us from the bright midday sun. Kakashi stood in front of me, hands on my shoulders, studying me with a faint frown.

"And yet another failure," he said. "Are you alright?"

_Oh. Right._

With a half-sob, half-whimper, I stepped forward and Kakashi caught my weight as I faltered, holding me upright. I hugged my arms around his torso.

"You can barely stand," he said. "I'll take that as a no."

"Don't move," I whispered, holding on tight.

"What?"

"I've just armed the explosive scroll in my belt pouch," I wheezed. "Feel the flow of chakra from my left leg."

I could sense Kakashi freeze up, his pose stiffening. "The other scroll didn't blow," he said slowly. "A transformation technique. You had the real one in your pocket all the time."

"Yes. If you break my hold, it blows. If you distract me too much, it blows, because I need to concentrate - it's very sensitive." I cleared my throat and continued. "There's no appreciable timer. _You_ would probably get away, but _I_ won't. I'd die, and right now you're responsible for my life, like you just proved yourself by 'saving' me. This isn't war; it's not even a mission. You can get away with a lot, but the death of a genin during an exam? That's bad publicity. There'd be a trial."

"You're… holding _yourself_ hostage against me?"

"That's right." I coughed and winced, tightening my grip on him as my sense of balance shifted alarmingly and my back and shoulder flared up in pain. "Wow, that hurts."

There was a moment of silence while I blinked something wet out of my right eye. It felt sticky, there was a lot of it.

"Well, it sounds like you have me in a proper pinch here," Kakashi said, his tone unreadable. "Now what?"

There was the soft patter of approaching footsteps.

"Now we take the bells!" Naruto's voice announced. I couldn't see him, with my head pressed into Kakashi's chest and looking the wrong way. Naruto continued. "_Sweet_ work, Sakura—holy shit." His voice cut off. "You, eh… all right?" he asked cautiously.

"Just take the bells," I bit out. "Quickly."

Light footsteps with a pronounced limp approached quickly, then darted away again accompanied by a tingling sound. "I have them," Izanami said.

"Thank the sage," I muttered, my posture slumping slightly. My chakra wobbled. With alarm, I began to bring it back under tight control to reset the scroll timer. There _was_ a timer, I wasn't _that_ insane; I needed time to turn it off if this blew up in my face.

But before I could regain control, many things happened at once, too fast to process. Something coursed through me, making all of my muscles seize up at once. Kakashi twisted out of my grip, seeming to implode into empty air. Something touched my left thigh and then my arms were twisted behind my back. I started to fall forward before the grip on my arms caught the weight.

I cried out in pain. It felt like my arms were twisting out of their sockets. Something grabbed me around the throat and pulled me fully upright. Only then did I manage to choke out, "The scroll—!" before I froze with realization, eyes wide.

It should have blown by now. What in the world…?

The grip on my throat relented a bit and something sharp and cold was pressed hard against it.

"I believe the appropriate term was 'don't move'," Kakashi whispered softly into my ear. His tone was amused. I felt out, and found what I was searching for; chakra at my left leg that wasn't my own, perfectly modulated to keep the scroll from blowing. I felt a bitter taste in my mouth. He had determined _exactly_ what I was doing, and he'd replicated it already.

Naruto and Izanami, I could see, had only managed a stunned half-reaction. Izanami was slumping, looking like she was ready to drop dead on her feet. That last technique had clearly taken everything she had left. Her eyes were their normal dark brown color now, her chakra insufficient to sustain even her Sharingan. Naruto was gripping a kunai so hard his hand was white, a grim look on his face.

"What the fuck?" he growled. "We got the bells. We pass."

"Yes," Kakashi said. "You do. Congratulations."

Naruto blinked. "What?"

I could feel Kakashi nodding behind me, indicating the two of them. Naruto and Izanami.

"You two pass," he said. His tone grew harder. "Sakura… fails."

Izanami's brows furrowed, and she frowned. Naruto's jaw dropped.

My breath caught. There was the physical pain of my head and back and my shoulder, the sharp pain as the kunai at my throat cut slightly into skin, and the discomfort of being held forcibly like this, but that was just that. I could tolerate it. I'd had worse physical pain during the infamous 9th year hell week and the interrogation resistance training. But now… this was different. I felt _sick_, like somebody had just punched me in the gut and then kicked me lying down.

"What the hell?!" Naruto exclaimed angrily. "Are you insane?"

"Hardly," Kakashi said. "I stated your goals clearly: get the bells. You have them."

I could feel the opportunities slipping away already. The accelerated promotion track away from active field duty and grunt work, the research scholarships, all the things I could _do_.

"The test can't be about getting the bells," Naruto bit out. "You said other teams have passed in the past. The sannin. Your team."

"I lied," Kakashi said simply.

_But that's—I—but—he didn't— _

My mind was trying to handle several splintering, conflicting trains of thought at once. What would mum and dad think?—this wasn't making any sense it wasn't fair—what was I going to do now?—dad would be relieved, mum would pretend not to be, and that would be _stupid_—and—

I forcibly jerked my mind to a halt. _Pay. Attention._ A ringing silence was left in my head.

"You're our superior!" Naruto was accusing Kakashi. "We're supposed to trust your word!"

_No we're not._

"Superiors can be enemies too," Kakashi said.

This wasn't making any sense.

"But—" I began, then choked off my words and grit my teeth together to endure the pain as Kakashi's hold tightened instantly and his kunai pressed harder against my throat. I could feel drops of blood trickling down and settling into the neckline of my clothes. I fought to keep from panicking, to keep my breathing calm and controlled.

This was _real_. A person was _really_ pressing a kunai into my throat. If he moved his hand just a little bit, I would be dead. I almost choked on a suppressed gulp. The tip of the kunai pressed harder still, unyielding as my throat flexed. I stilled, trembling, forcing muscles rigid against their will, trying keep the lid on my rising panic.

"Not a word," he murmured ever so softly behind me.

"What do you _want_ from us?" Naruto asked.

"I want you to _think_," Kakashi said to Naruto and Izanami. "You've fulfilled the mission parameters. Your teammate has been taken hostage by the enemy and has now become nothing but a liability. She's endangering your mission. You're a ninja."

"This isn't a fucking mission," Naruto said. "This is a test. We're freshly minted genin, not experienced ninja. We're _fifteen_."

"You ceased being children the moment you passed your exams," Kakashi said. "You're ninja now. This is an adult profession, and I'll treat you exactly like I would any other adult."

"Look at her," Naruto said. "She's _crying_, for gods sake."

Was I? I wasn't sure. My cheeks were wet and I wasn't seeing right, but it could've just been more blood. I felt numb. I couldn't breathe. I couldn't _concentrate_.

I thought I registered a measure of pity in Naruto's eyes, and something else. I clenched my jaw bitterly. Hadn't it been _my_ plan that even got him so far? My _sacrifice?_

"Only more proof that she deserves to fail," Kakashi said, his tone cold. "She doesn't have what it takes."

It _burned_, hearing him say that. I wanted to speak out, to accuse him of hypocrisy, of favoritism, of _anything_, to demand answers, but I _couldn't_ _speak_. He wouldn't _let_ me. This wasn't _fair_. My cheeks felt hot and my vision swam. I definitely was crying now; I couldn't stop it.

"I'm not listening to any more of this," Naruto said. Through the blur of my vision I saw his kunai dropping from his hand. He squared his shoulders and clenched his fists. Something _shifted_.

The hairs on the back of my neck stood up.

"This is not a wise course of action," Kakashi warned him. "You're treading dangerously close to failing yourself, now."

"Naruto, _no_," Izanami said. It was the first time she'd spoken in this conversation at all. "This isn't _worth _it, _she_ isn't worth it—"

Naruto's gaze flickered at her. "Pitch in or fuck off."

Izanami's mouth opened, then closed again. She took a deep breath, drew a kunai and faced Kakashi without another word, her gaze hard.

"Thanks," Naruto said quietly.

Izanami shrugged.

Naruto fixed his gaze on Kakashi, and there was something wrong, there. Naruto looked too confident. I realized with a faint shiver that he wasn't afraid of Kakashi at _all_. And that was when I felt it; a hint of something - a very faint feeling that quickly grew in intensity, like I was a microscopic mote peeping through a tiny hole at something incomprehensibly _vast_ that surrounded me, _engulfed_ me. Some primal instinct was screaming at me from the back of my brain: _DANGER. RUN._

"You're sure about this?" Kakashi asked.

Naruto nodded. "You want a fight? I'll give you a real fucking fight."

I felt Kakashi turn to look at Izanami. "And you too?" His tone was colder. "I'd looked forward to training you. There are a lot of things only I can teach you. There aren't any second chances here."

Her jaw clenched tight, but she just stared back at him, staying by Naruto's side, not a word leaving her mouth. The two of them locked gazes for long, tense seconds.

Then Kakashi sighed. "That's good."

His grip on me softened, the sharp edge of the kunai disappeared, and I found myself lowered gently to the ground. My legs crumbled under me as he stopped holding my weight, and I fell the rest of the way to my hands and knees. The sudden movement caused my entire world to wobble and I lost my balance, falling to the ground.

"Congratulations," I heard him say from behind me.

"What the hell…?" I breathed, touching my throat tenderly where the kunai had cut me. My hands were shaking like leaves. In the back of my mind, without even paying any attention at all, I was keenly aware of that ominous, foreboding feeling fading away sharply. I looked up at Naruto, intuiting that he really must have been the source of it. He was looking very confused, staring with open suspicion at Kakashi. Izanami's mouth was hanging slightly open with incomprehension.

I turned my head and looked up at Kakashi. What little I could see of his face was apologetic. His one visible eye gleamed with something I couldn't quite place as he looked between the three of us.

"You pass my test," he said. "All three of you pass with flying colors."

* * *

**CHAPTER END**

* * *

As a general rule, reviews make authors happy. As a specific rule, reviews make _me_ ecstatic. Click that button. Write those words on your mind. You know you want to.


	3. Spark 3

**Author's note:**

Hello everyone, and welcome back! After a small delay, I've finally started updating. I intend for my updates to occur on a bi-weekly schedule - the bottom of the latest chapter and the story description will always state when exactly the next update is. After a _lot_ of feedback from my wonderful betas, there have been a fair amount of changes to the first two chapters. You might also wish to refresh your memory - in either case, I can recommend perhaps rereading or skimming the first two chapters to regain an idea of where we are in the story.

That is all! I hope you enjoy reading.

* * *

It is a generally accepted and generally ignored fact that all ninja villages today deploy what are essentially child soldiers. These children, trained from early childhood in the art of battle and chakra manipulation, grow into the elite ninja corps that are renowned for their ability to wage swift, brutal war on the battlefield.

The practice stems from earlier times, before the aggregation of the lesser noble houses into the larger elemental countries in the final alliances to fend off incursions from larger foreign entities. Ninja in those times were largely mercenary clans for hire who fought for money, fame and prestige; the training of the clan's children into young warriors was simply a matter of course, tradition and, occasionally, need.

It is likely that changing the way things worked was never truly considered, given the fragile formative years of the ninja village concept which was spearheaded by the First Hokage. Which brings us to today, when children are recruited to academies at the age of five and graduate to some form of active service from ages nine to eighteen, depending on village and the need at the time. The villages who even feel the need to defend the practice argue that a ninja's early years are crucial in the development of their true potential powers, and that their younger ranks are mostly kept safe with non-lethal, non-hazardous missions.

Nevertheless, however horrifying the thought may be, the practice is tolerated. For many decades now no great nation has gone to war with a major opponent possessing ninja support without first acquiring such support for themselves. It has become strictly necessary for even smaller nations to maintain and fund the so-called ninja villages in times of peace, who in turn pledge their loyalty to their host nation in times of war.

— _Yuzuki Ryoka, "So you think you know ninja?", Excerpt of Article pp. 16-19, Gotama Weekly, Issue 7493_

* * *

_Why do you go away? So that you can come back. So that you can see the place you came from with new eyes and extra colors. And the people there see you differently, too. Coming back to where you started is not the same as never leaving._

* * *

"This isn't too bad. Just scary-looking cuts and bruises. There won't be any scars."

"It hurts less than I'd thought it would at first," I admitted. I was sitting on a mossy tree log in the forest, while Kakashi gave me a once-over to make sure I was going to be all right. He had guided me here after handing me back the explosive scroll and having me deactivate it.

Naruto and Izanami were off in the distance, near the shore of the river; Izanami sat tiredly and Naruto stood beside her, his shoulders barely sagging. I should be more curious about that, I should have questions about his inhuman stamina, but all I could think was: _later_. I did not have the physical or mental energy to pester him about the secret bloodline limit he must be in possession of. I couldn't even be sure he'd tell me, or that he was allowed to.

Izanami and Naruto seemed to be arguing; Naruto was waving his arms to make some point while she idly cleaned and patched up her cuts and bruises, occasionally glancing mulishly aside at him, letting out a few words that looked lethally sharp even at this distance. I couldn't bring myself to feel interested. I felt… numb. Out of balance.

Moments ago, I'd been failing one of the most important tests of my life—now I had a renowned and powerful jounin sensei, an internationally famous teammate who had one of the rarest and most powerful bloodline limits in the world, and another teammate who received strange, significant glances from someone like Kakashi and had some secret bloodline limit which left him barely exhausted after performing feats of endurance and chakra capacity which I was sure could floor some jounin.

And here I was, with my silly seal tricks, trying to compete or even keep up with people like that? Just who was I kidding?

It felt unreal.

Kakashi said something, from behind me.

"What?" I asked.

"I said, I'll take care of this here."

I frowned. "Isn't this a job for the hospital back in the city?"

"It's not too serious, and I'd rather you three got used to the less-than-stellar conditions in the field. It's rare on a mission that you have convenient access to a well-staffed and advanced hospital like the Konoha Primary. I've got here some good old regular anti-septic and a few field-issue bandages - with that you'll be perfectly fine. The rest is bruises and chakra exhaustion, to which the only known cure is rest."

I nodded. I wasn't sure I agreed, but I didn't have the energy to question his line of thought. My entire body was aching and weak and I felt ready to lie down and sleep for a week, and as soon as I got home that was exactly what I would be doing.

Kakashi rummaged behind me, and then started dabbing something on my shoulder. I hissed before I could stop myself. Then the pain faded, replaced by the anti-septic chill.

"So what was the test _really_ about?" I asked.

There was a small pause before Kakashi answered. "Being a ninja is full of interesting contradictions. I want pupils who, when faced with some of these contradictions, make the right calls."

"Sticking with our teammates, you mean?"

"Yes."

"That's more idealistic than I'd have expected from…" I stopped myself.

"What?"

"Well… from someone like you," I admitted.

He chuckled. "Someone like me? No, I won't ask. But you'll find that secretly, most ninja in the end fall into two categories: the cynics, and the idealists."

"Huh."

"I happen to be on the side that thinks that a ninja who breaks the rules is trash, but that a ninja who abandons their comrades is worse than trash."

I frowned. "That makes either choice sound bad."

"That's true. Yet when faced with two bad choices, a real ninja should have the guts to pick the least bad one without hesitating. But the best idea, of course, is to avoid ever getting into that kind of situation. Always keep that part in mind."

I frowned, then nodded. "Okay."

"Which reminds me," Kakashi said a few moments later. "I should… apologize. For what I did back there."

"Hm," I grunted, not trusting myself to not say something stupid if I actually spoke out loud.

Kakashi was quiet for a moment, then cleared his throat. "Okay. That's done. Ah, allow me to compliment you on your clever trap, by the way. That one was your idea? I was given that impression."

I cleared my throat and licked my lips. "Yes."

"I was curious what the trap was, when I saw you drop the transformed scroll - I only noticed then that it had been transformed, actually, very good job with that - so I played along. I have to thank you. It was an excellent opportunity to carry out the real test."

"Wait… you mean you _knew all along?_" I asked. "You were just… _playing_ us the whole time?"

It put a very different perspective on today's events.

"I admit… you did confound me for a short time, until I figured out how you were maintaining the scroll trigger. I didn't expect you to use yourself as unacceptable collateral to escaping the trap. _That_ was the part that caught me off guard. I was very impressed."

"I… see." I suddenly found myself studying my lap in great detail.

Kakashi walked around the log and bent down in front me. I let him put a hand under my chin and he began to clean the gash on my forehead and the cut on my throat. This time, being more prepared, I did manage to hold back the hiss.

"I'm curious to hear how you managed to make those scrolls work," he said. "I've heard rumors that it's possible, but nothing substantial. What did you do - fix the timing issue, or did you somehow circumvent the diminishing returns on a storage seal's chakra capacity, or was it something else entirely?"

"The timing," I said. "It's actually pretty simple when you realize it."

"Oh?"

"If you pick apart a digital cl—" I began, then stopped, frowned, and spent the effort to really gather my thoughts for a moment. I blinked and fought down a spell of dizziness, then eyed Kakashi with faint alarm. "I'm under no obligation to tell you how it works."

He raised an eyebrow at me. "Really?"

It wasn't fair of him, to try and fish out my secrets while I was as muddle-headed as this. By rights, the scrolls were _my_ work. He should know that—or perhaps he did. I wouldn't put it beneath him, from what I'd seen him do so far - idealist or no.

"Really," I said. "You know that."

"I do?"

"'No single ninja or clan affiliated to Konoha shall be obliged to reveal the workings of techniques developed, discovered by or passed on to them.'" I frowned. "Or… something like that, I don't remember the exact wording."

"First's law," Kakashi said, nodding as he fastened a plaster to the cut on my forehead. "You've done your research."

"More like I passed History in fifth grade," I muttered. "Half of the clans of Konoha only joined because of that law. It's the reason we're the largest ninja village around. Besides being the first."

"But you still told me enough, I think. A digital clock, you say? Interesting."

"It won't work," I said quickly. "It'll still just be useless."

He nodded. "I see. I'll keep that in mind when it doesn't work the first time around. Thank you."

"But—you can't just—" I stopped myself and stared at Kakashi. The corner of his visible eye was crinkling and he was looking _far_ too amused.

"I _am_ the Copy Ninja," he said mildly. "What did you expect?"

"Fair play?" I almost winced, just saying it. I already knew what the answer would be.

"That's a very good joke. Also a very bad one."

I stared at Kakashi. He stared right back without the slightest twitch. "Okay," I said. "I get it. There's a lesson there I'm supposed to learn, right?"

Kakashi shrugged. "I don't know. Is there?"

_Layers within layers…_

I scowled at him. "I'm tired. Can we please…?"

He stared at me for a moment more, then nodded and stood up. "Okay. Your shoulder is clean, but it should be bandaged. So it's off with the shirt and anything else that might get in the way. Come on, don't be shy."

I stared at him. "You're not serious."

He sighed. "I'll have to write in and complain," he muttered. "Or work on my line delivery. And to think, that one always works in the books."

I blinked, taking a moment to digest that. His _porn_ books. "Oh my god! That's disgusting! You're trying to—" I cut myself off. Then my eyes narrowed and I studied what I could see of his expression more closely. It was studiously blank and innocent, regarding me keenly.

"Wait…" I said.

Kakashi held out a small roll of bandages—I got the sense that he was grinning, behind that mask. "I suspect you want to do this next part yourself. I know you scored perfectly in first aid."

I blinked. There was a small pause.

_You bastard._

"The theory part, anyway," I corrected him, releasing a pent-up breath. I snatched the roll from his hand. "I'll… be right there."

He nodded. "Don't be too long. We're almost done for today."

I sat, unmoving, and watched him trundle over towards Naruto and Izanami, his hands in his pockets.

_Does he _ever_ tell the truth, or stop testing us?_

At least I now knew that I had been right about him not being anything like the slouchy bum he resembled. Having him for a sensei was going to be a nightmare, I could tell. At least it also boded to be an instructive one.

I pulled myself to my feet and retreated behind some nearby bushes to peel off my t-shirt. It was torn in several places, and blood had soaked into the fabric. I sighed; I'd have to throw it out. Applying the bandages around the shoulder was a little tricky, but I got it done. Ten minutes later I pulled my t-shirt back on, wrinkling my nose at the stiffened patches of blood-stained fabric.

I tried to ignore the feeling. Instructors had been clear on the point, and hell week had been _much_ clearer still: being squeamish about things like this would _not_ help you as a ninja. I'd sparred full-contact regularly for years, as was the norm in first-grade; I wasn't a stranger to blood or pain, though this was more than I was used to.

When I finally dragged myself back to the others, Naruto and Izanami seemed to have come to some sort of agreement—or at least, the argument was over. I wondered what it had been about. Interestingly, Izanami was the one looking sour and mulish (more than normal, that was), and Naruto the one who was whistling and throwing pebbles into the river. Kakashi leaned against a tree with his arms crossed, observing both of them. He turned towards me as I neared.

"There you are," he said. "Okay, I'm going to give a brief outline of what this is going to be like, before we part for the day. You've probably heard, but in the beginning we're going to be doing mostly D-rank missions, until I feel we're ready for C-ranks."

Izanami frowned. "You're kidding, right?"

"Procedure is procedure. And this is peacetime, with no war or major conflict brewing anywhere we care, for once."

"D-ranks are missions like intracity escorts, community service, assisting the police and _maybe_ brief out-of-city forays," Izanami pointed out in icy tones.

Kakashi shrugged at her. "Nobody's in any hurry to get killed these days."

Izanami's expression soured even further, if that was possible.

_Suck it up, Izanami_, I thought privately with faint glee. _You'll have to get down on your knees with the rest of us, painting fences for some crappy kindergarten, creating good PR for the glory of Konoha._

"Most first-grade teams move on to C-ranks within a week or two, or just skip straight to them, but I don't care much for established precedent," Kakashi said. "I won't feel you're ready for more serious missions until I see some real team cohesiveness. That might be a few days, or a few months—but that part is up to you. That's another thing I wanted to say. I'm not going to hold your hands all the time. But—" he held up a finger "—that doesn't mean you can't come to me with anything if there's a problem. I'm your sensei now, which means I'm available whenever, wherever."

He clapped his hands. "So! I'll be picking enough D-ranks from the mission board every morning to keep you occupied until around two o'clock. Now, some team leaders are happy with relying on just academy training and accumulating experience through missions, but I'm not—which means that after that we're going to train. You'll generally get off some time in the late afternoon, probably, but I'm not going to offer up a schedule as I'm just going to be improvising anyway."

_Well, that sounds… promising._

"You're not coming with us on the D-ranks?" I asked.

He looked at me. "Barring perhaps the occasional exception, I have better things to do than standing around in the downtown markets making sure nobody's shoplifting vegetables and running down the culprits that inevitably do. Which, by the way, is honestly a lot harder than it sounds."

Izanami looked offended. Naruto grinned at her looking offended. I frowned, peering at Kakashi with suspicion. He noticed, and I could see him smile faintly at me behind his mask. I had the feeling he was being tricky again. He _would_ be watching us while we worked, seeing how well we were doing. Maybe while also reading porn, which was a creepy thought, but I doubted very strongly he would just be ignoring us. It… didn't fit with my impression of him.

"That's it for today," Kakashi said. "The Administration is being uncharacteristically merciful, so we start in four days, giving you a single day to recuperate after the graduation ceremony the day after tomorrow. I'll see you before then at the ceremony, eight sharp, for swearing your oaths."

He eyed us over, almost curiously. "And… good work today. I'm almost looking forward to this."

He vanished in a puff of smoke.

* * *

The midday sun was high in the sky and there was barely a cloud to be seen. A light breeze blew across the academy grounds, providing a welcome breath of fresh air in the stifling summer heat.

Almost a thousand freshly minted genin stood in neat rows in the Konoha Ninja Academy's central assembly area. They were divided into teams of three, a chuunin sensei standing before each team, facing them. Slightly ahead of the rest stood two smaller rows of genin teams; the first-grades, with their jounin standing in turn in front of them. On the ground before every graduate lay a gleaming, polished forehead protector embossed with the swirl and triangle symbol of Konoha.

Kakashi, of course, was the one who stood in front of my team; Team Seven of class 1A. He stood slouched as ever with his hands in his pockets, staring at us with bemusement, as if even he had trouble believing that we were standing here.

To our right was Team Eight, their jounin being a woman with eyes so red that I'd almost mistaken for a Sharingan user when I first studied her closer. She was surveying her new team with a faint, almost maternal smile. Beyond Team Eight stood Team Ten, which was Ino's team, with Sarutobi Asuma as their jounin. Straight to our left was Team Five. Team Six and Team Nine had failed their tests, along with Team Two and Team Twelve. They would be standing somewhere behind us with the second-grades.

To the sides, thousands of fold-up plastic chairs had been put out for parents, relatives, media, tourists and anybody else who wanted to take a look at the newest of Konoha's finest. I could spot my parents out of the corner of my eye, and that was only because close family, along with the explicitly invited media, were reserved privileged positions at the front.

Every seat I could see from here was taken, and a lot of people were standing up. The academy's graduation ceremony was one of the bigger public events of the year; I'd attended many times before, myself, dragging my mother and father along. It felt very odd—and unnerving—to finally be the one standing here under all of these gazes, instead of over there at the sidelines, looking forward to the day _I_ would get to be here.

_Well, now I _am_ here. Finally._

In front of everyone assembled stood a wooden podium for speaking. To the side of _that_ stood an old man in white and red robes, wearing a diamond-shaped conical hat with the kanji for 'fire' engraved on it. I had a hard time keeping my gaze from him; this was the first time I'd ever seen him this close in person. Sarutobi Hiruzen, the Third Hokage. He was barely twenty meters away.

He was talking to a small group of council-members, a gaggle of secretaries and assistants hovering in the background. They were nodding at each other and shaking hands; it couldn't be long now. Indeed, barely a minute passed before the group parted, and the Hokage ascended onto the podium. The sound from the speakers of him adjusting the microphone and then clearing his throat boomed across the area, and brought a hush to the crowd.

_Every year…_ I thought. _I'm called here…_

"Every year," he began, "I'm called here to stand before you all."

_He always starts the same way._

"Looking at all of you standing here in front of me ready to carry on the Will of Fire lifts an old man's spirit. I know that you are young, and that you probably hear this kind of thing far too much from old people like me, but I believe that, later, when you eventually stand in a position somewhat like mine, you will understand my meaning much more clearly when I tell you that everything my generation has achieved is standing in front of me today." He paused, for a moment. "I couldn't be prouder."

I frowned; he'd never said anything _quite_ like that before.

"But on with it. Every year, my speech is a little different. Some years, I talk about the hope that new generations bring. Some years I talk about the harsh realities that await you. This year, I will talk about why we are all here. You don't understand now, but eventually you will."

He put both of his arms on the podium and leaned forward, his gaze sweeping across the assembled genin. I almost shivered when the weight of his gaze passed over me, and began to see some of the sense of his title.

"Look to your sides," he said. "Look at the person standing in front of your team. For the next years, these are the people you will fight and bleed with. They will be like your family."

I raised an eyebrow and looked to my left at Izanami. She was staring down at the ground. Past her, Naruto was frowning at the Hokage.

"A year from now, two years from now, five years from now…" the Hokage continued. "Eventually the time will come when you will be asked to put your life on the line for them. And by that time, you will do it. Why? Because they are your teammates, and you would do anything for them, as they would for you." He paused, briefly. "When I look at all of you, that is what _I_ feel."

He took a moment again, to sweep his gaze over all of us.

"All of us find something," he said. "Something that we would sacrifice everything for. Maybe that something will be your team. Maybe that something will be your friends, or family. Maybe it will be Konoha. I'm speaking, of course, of love."

He leaned forward and tapped his finger forcefully on the wooden podium with every word he spoke next: "There _is no force_ more powerful than the desire to protect. That inner strength is what drives every Konoha ninja onward when others would have given up a long time ago. We fight for our teammates, for our friends, for our family, for our _village_."

He stood back again, and waved a hand loosely in the air. "Pay no attention to those among you who shake their heads, thinking that I am simply being a silly old man. When you find that special someone whom you cherish above all else, you will understand. When you hold your newborn child in your arms, you will understand. When you fight and watch close friends and comrades bleed and die on the field of battle, you will understand why we are here. We are here because of those we love. We are here to protect them, and to make sure that their future is brighter than ours."

"So why do we fight, and bleed, and, perhaps, die?" he asked. "That is why. That's what the Will of Fire _means_. And that's what I'm going to ask of you this year. Find out why you are here. Find out why you fight. Find out what it is that you love, what you are willing to give your life for. Find that strength, and with it, you will be able to do wonders."

A palpable silence hung in the air as he let his words sink in before continuing again. The speech was more or less regular, after that. A few amusing anecdotes about his grandchild, apparently just recently enrolled in the academy, had everyone laughing dutifully. He had more words on what awaited us out there. And then, finally…

"Now!" he said, with a lighter tone. "I'm sure you are all eager to get on with the parts that _really_ interest you. I've been known to prattle in the past. Rest assured, I shall inflict no more of this on you."

There was a ripple of polite chuckling, but it quickly subsided again. I could feel the anticipation of everyone around me, like a rising pressure in the air. The Hokage cleared his throat. Every single team leader came to attention—even Kakashi.

"You have already taken your vows earlier today," the Hokage said. "You have done everything we asked of you, and you have performed admirably. As the joke goes, the reward for a job well done is another job. You are hereby all presented with your forehead protectors, marking your exemplary standing as ninja of Konoha."

There was a rustle of motion as all of the team leaders stepped forward at once. Kakashi started with Naruto, kneeling down to pick up the forehead protector in front of him and then standing back up to tie it around Naruto's forehead. He leaned in and muttered a few words, and Naruto nodded in turn. They shook hands. Kakashi then moved on to Izanami, putting her forehead protector on, and likewise leaned in to mutter a few words to her and shake her hand.

And then he was kneeling in front of me, picking up my forehead protector. I stood stiff while he tied it around my head, and then the weight of it settled. He leaned in, his gaze wry.

"I never thought I'd be here," he said. "So thank you for that. Congratulations."

I took his hand and shook it, feeling obliged to smile and nod. "Thank you."

He nodded and stepped back to his former place. I stole a glance around. Almost everybody else was done by now, too. It wasn't long before the Hokage spoke again. "And so we are done with the formal parts of today, though I am sure you have plenty of things to see to after this. Let's not keep you. I formally proclaim all of you genin of Konoha! May you serve well and long."

And that was that; the ceremony was over. We were now genin on active duty. A cheer started behind me, and I turned around, unable to resist grinning a little. The cheer spread as more and more genin joined it, turning into a roar—the sound was already deafening.

Then the surrounding crowds joined in.

* * *

I pushed my way through the crowd. There were cheerful genin everywhere, intermingling with parents and other relatives. I soon managed to track down my own mother and father; mother spotted me first of the two.

"Sakura!" she called out, beaming, and pointed in my direction for the benefit of my father.

I maneuvered my way there, and she hugged me tightly.

"I was so proud, watching you standing there all the way at the front," she muttered into my ear. "You're so grown up."

"Mom, stop it," I said, embarrassed, looking around over her shoulder to see if anyone was watching. Only dad.

Mother pulled away and held me at arm's length, beaming at me. I realized that she was crying. "Is… something wrong?" I asked.

She laughed and wiped her eyes. "Oh, no, no…" she shook her head. "Look at me, being all silly and emotional. Go say hello to your dad." She waved a hand flippantly in the air and turned away, sniffling loudly. I frowned at her.

"Don't mind her," someone muttered into my ear. I jumped, not having noticed my dad drawing closer. He put a hand on my shoulder and smiled. "She's just proud, that's all."

"That's really awkward, you saying that, you know," I said, abashed. "I'm not that good at all."

"You were at the front," he pointed out. "And even I have heard of your sensei. And of one of your teammates, too. You're among famous people."

"Well, yes, but—"

"But nothing," he cut across me. "I know you hate compliments. Ah!" He put his finger to my mouth as I began to protest. "Not a word." Then his face grew more serious. "What I wanted to say was, you know I don't approve of your choice, doing this." He waved a hand around us.

I frowned again. Was he really about to go into this, right now?

"But that doesn't matter right now," he said quickly, seeing my expression. "I'm still proud. I've always known that whatever you chose, you would be the best at it." He smirked knowingly. "You _are_ my daughter, after all."

"_Dad…_"

"I mean it!"

I eyed him. "You're really okay with this?"

He pursed his mouth for a few moments. "As long as you don't get hurt—too much, I know how it is—and I can count on you coming home some day with my grandchildren in hand and taking care of me when I grow old… I'm okay with it." He smiled, and held out his hand. "Is that a deal?"

I opened my mouth, thinking back to the brutality of Kakashi's test, and, before that, hell week. I'd managed to keep the worst of those things from my parents. They would just worry and nag incessantly. They already reacted badly enough to the few nicks and bruises they did see.

Dad _especially_ had not been happy about the cut on my throat, after I'd come back three days ago. It had taken me forever to convince him that Kakashi had had everything under control and that he was just trying to simulate a realistic situation.

"Sakura?" my dad asked as the silence lengthened. "You really shouldn't have to stop and think about this, you know."

I blinked, then forced a tight smile. "No, of course not." I took his hand. "It's a deal, dad."

He pulled me in for a tight hug. I tried not to wince as he put pressure on my shoulder. "Okay, kiddo," he said. "That's good."

"I don't know about the grandchildren thing, though," I muttered wryly into his hair.

He chuckled and released me, stepping back with a twinkle in his eye. He crossed his arms and looked over at mother, standing a small distance away, now talking with some other woman whom I didn't recognize. "We'll have to see what Mebuki says about that. Your mother can be a scary woman when there's something she really wants."

"I'd like to see her _try_," I muttered under my breath.

"What's that?" he asked. "I didn't hear."

"Oh, nothing."

"I think I see your friend Ino, there," my father said. I looked at where he pointed and saw Ino standing with her parents a small distance away. She noticed me looking and waved.

"Uhm…" I began and looked aside at mom, still engaged in conversation.

My dad saw, and smiled. "Go."

"But—"

"Go. We'll see you tonight. Not too late, okay?"

I opened my mouth to agree, then caught myself. "Dad, I'm legally an adult now and—"

"And you're still my fifteen year old daughter," he said. "If I get up at, say, three in the morning, and you're still not home, that doesn't mean you're any less grounded."

I hesitated. I hadn't really planned on partying that much in any case. Traditional or not, parties really just weren't my thing. And the others would definitely want me to get drunk or something, now that we were allowed. Just the thought made me sigh. "Okay, no, definitely not that late."

_You are now my get-away excuse._

"That's good to hear." He patted me on the shoulder, giving me a soft push. "Now off with you. Enjoy your day."

I smiled at him. "Thanks."

I walked over to Ino. She said something to her parents and stepped clear of them, meeting me halfway.

"Hi," she said.

"Hi," I replied with equal inanity.

"The headband suits you. Hides the forehead."

"Oh, shut up."

She grinned and put her arm around my shoulder. "Come on, cheer up! We're genin!"

"I… guess we are. Huh."

She looked at me, frowning. "What's on your mind?"

"I was just thinking about the Hokage's speech," I admitted after a moment's hesitation.

"I thought it was pretty corny," Ino said. "But he's alright, our Hokage. Unlike most of the other Kage."

"Or so the Konoha papers would have us believe," I said. "Still… I think I got what he meant. Okay, it was pretty corny, but maybe that's just what people sound like when they actually mean what they're saying, and we're just used to the censors everybody puts on themselves because they're afraid of sounding silly."

Whatever else he was, the Hokage clearly was not afraid of sounding silly, which lent his words a weight all of their own.

Ino crossed her arms. "That's… a pretty deep thought, Sakura. Maybe you're even right." She shrugged, grinning slyly. "But honestly, is now the time?"

I sighed. "I guess not."

"Right." She nodded, and clapped her hands eagerly. "So! Genin night! We—_I_—have it _all_ planned out. It's going to be awesome, and there's going to be a few surprises even _you_ are going to love."

I groaned and she jabbed me lightly on the shoulder. "Don't think I'll let you escape, my introverted little friend. You are a genin now, and you will join everybody else in becoming gloriously drunk while we wag our tongues at everyone under twenty without a headband."

Of _course_ Ino was the one who had energetically taken on the responsibility of organizing and planning the first-grader's version of the traditional collective post-graduation pub-crawl. Ino loved partying, she loved being the center of attention, and she was definitely going to be the one to make sure that our first night as genin was unforgettable if she had anything to say about that.

_And_ I'd seen her whispering conspiratorially with Naruto several times in the last few weeks. I had a budding theory that the two were arranging something together - it helped that she'd just slipped and admitted she had at least one other co-conspirator.

I licked my lips and opened my mouth only to be interrupted as she patted me on the back. "Don't worry, we're not starting yet. I, for one, need to get home and spruce up a bit before tonight." She eyed me impishly. "You might want to put a bit of effort into it as well."

"In your dreams," I choked.

"Just a _bit_ of make-up, Sakura." Ino pouted. "You could look pretty if you wanted to. I know I gave you some for your last birthday. It was the good stuff, too."

I sighed, trying not to shake my head. "I'll see you when?"

"Fifteen hundred. I'll come by your house."

"Right."

"And you just _have_ to spend the walk to the meet-up telling me about your trial with Kakashi. I heard from Shikamaru that no team has _ever_ passed Kakashi's test before. I got so worried—I'm _dying_ to know what happened."

"Uh… sure. If you tell me about yours."

She grinned. "It's a deal. See you there."

* * *

"This shirt… or this…?" I muttered under my breath.

I held both up in front of the mirror—still a little foggy from the shower I'd just taken—trying to weigh their merits and, maybe more importantly, their demerits, against each other.

"Gah." I let both of them fall to the floor. At least finally getting the bandages off had been nice. The wound did seem to be healing nicely; it would probably be gone entirely in a week or two. I could see why Kakashi hadn't been too worried about it.

Not that the thought got my mood up entirely. I _hated_ getting ready for social events. Should I put on make-up? How much? Where? How much perfume should I use, and which kind? Should I set my hair somehow? Wear a… push-up bra? Did I even _have_ one of those? I sighed. All those arcane questions. I had no idea; did it even matter?

I fancied myself an honest person, and frankly, I wasn't the most curvaceous or attractive of girls. I was short, gangly, flat as a board and my eyes were a mushy, extremely non-striking pale green. And then of course, to top it all off, for strange and unknown genetic reasons, my hair was naturally a bright, screaming _pink_. I reached up and idly fiddled with a strand of it. I'd asked my parents about it, once, but it wasn't something they'd heard about before from any of their ancestors.

Genes of people with strong chakra potential were volatile in a very unique way, and mixing them often had unpredictable results; that led to all of the various useful and, of course, _less_ useful bloodline abilities that occasionally appeared. If I'd had to pick one, pink hair wouldn't have been it. Then again, the precision of my chakra control had often been noted as downright uncanny by instructors; maybe that was genetic too, in which case I supposed I shouldn't complain.

Actually, I did kind of like my hair, which was why I'd never colored it over—that would just feel like giving in. I didn't think it looked that bad, but socially, it wasn't exactly the most helpful of qualities. Everybody always thought I was dyeing it, and that made them assume… _strange_ things about me. That along with not being the prettiest of people made me stand out just enough, and had often left me isolated as a kid. I'd been bullied a bit over it, when I was younger, but not for years now, after I made the decision to simply stop caring about it and the bullies grew bored annoying someone who apparently didn't get annoyed.

Besides, later on Ino would kill anyone who gave me trouble over it, and if the class had had a social queen, she was it, since Izanami had never even bothered to compete for the spot. The thought made me smile. Ino could sometimes be an overprotective friend. Still; she might be silly at times, she was maybe a bit too energetic and sociable for my taste, and a hassle to be around when she went all starry-eyed girly-girl on things, but she was a true friend behind all of that.

I'd often thought that, being born as heir to one of the larger clans in Konoha, she'd sort of seen it as her duty to play to the media's stereotypes, buying nice clothes and being very outgoing and bright and… well, girly. Okay, she was definitely like that naturally too, but I thought that being around a person like me who didn't really care too much about all that allowed her to sometimes settle back and relax a bit without worrying about being judged.

Meanwhile, she was always the one to pull me out and do stuff, even though it was sometimes against my will. She often told me that if she didn't do it, I'd just be sitting inside all day, poring over scrolls or playing around with seals or practicing ridiculously complex chakra control exercises I'd dug up in some old book—for fun. It was true, too.

We struck a good balance. Synergy and all that. I sighed, staring into the mirror. _I wish we'd been on a team together. But I guess you have to work with the hand you've been dealt._

I glanced down at the shirts on the floor for a long moment, then bent down and picked one at random.

"Who cares."

Fifteen minutes later I opened the door half a second after Ino had knocked on it. She blinked, looked me up and down briefly, shrugged—_and there we have the verdict: on a scale from zero to ten, you get a shrug_—then leaned in to sniff at me. I leaned back a little.

"Uhh… what are you doing?" I asked.

"That shampoo doesn't really go too well along with that perfume, you know," she said.

_Right._

I shrugged. "Well, I guess that's too bad for the shampoo and perfume. They'll have to get along for the night."

"Being a girl is wasted on you."

I didn't blink. _I knew I should have picked the other one._

"Whatever you say, Ino." I looked down the street. "Shall we?"

"Yeah."

And so we were on our way. I really hoped this night wouldn't be too tedious.

* * *

**CHAPTER END**

* * *

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